"I was there, Mother. I know what she did."
"You just think she's pretty, that's all. I know how your mind works, Marcus. You are your father's son."
It was meant to be an insult. Marcus didn't remember his father. Claude Renard had left them when Marcus was hardly more than a toddler. He had never come back, had severed all ties. There were times when Marcus envied him.
He closed his eyes now and let a wave of Percodan wash the memory from his battered brain. The miracles of modern chemistry.
He had gone straight to his bedroom and shut out his mother's incessant whining with a pill and two hours of unconsciousness. When he came to, the house was quiet. Everyone had settled back into their routines. His mother retreated to her room every night at nine to watch television preachers and work her word puzzles. She would be in bed by ten and would complain all the next morning that she had barely slept. According to Doll, she hadn't slept through a night in her life.
Victor went to bed at eight and rose at midnight to study his nature books or work on elaborate mathematical calculations. He would go to bed again at four A.M. and rise for the day precisely at eight. Routine was sacred to him. He equated routine with normalcy. The least deviation could set him off into a spell of upset, causing him to rock himself and mumble, or worse. Routine made him happy.
If only my own life were so simple. Marcus didn't like being the center of anyone's attention. He preferred to be left alone to do his work and to work at his hobbies.
His workroom was located just off his bedroom and had probably been a study or a nursery at one time in the house's history. He had claimed the small suite as his own the first time he had walked through the house with Pam. She had been his real estate agent when he had come to Bayou Breaux to interview with Bowen amp; Briggs-another strand in the thread of continuity.
The suite was on the first floor at the back of the house and you had to walk through one room to get to the other. A worktable held his latest project, a Queen Anne dollhouse with elaborate gingerbread and heart-shaped shingles on the roof. Houses he had designed and built over the years were displayed on deep custom-built shelves along one long wall. He entered them in competitions at fairs and sold all but the most special to him.
But it wasn't the dollhouse that claimed his attention tonight. Tonight he had risen from bed to sit at his drawing table. He worked to bring a mental image from his mind to the page.
Pam had been a lovely woman-small, feminine, her dark hair cut in a sleek, shoulder-length bob, her smile bright, her brown eyes sparkling with life. She had her nails done every Friday. She shopped at the most exclusive stores in Lafayette, and always looked as if she had just stepped from the pages of Southern Living or Town and Country.
Annie was pretty in her own way. She was taller than Pam, but by no more than an inch; sturdier than Pam, but still small. He pictured her, not in the slate blue sheriff's department uniform, but in the long, flowered skirt she had worn last night. He rid her of the sloppy denim jacket and put her instead in a white cotton camisole. Delicate, almost sheer, teasing him with the shadows of her small breasts.
In his mind's eye, he combed her hair back neatly and secured it at the nape of her slender neck with a white bow. She had a retrousse nose; a hint of a cleft gave her chin a certain stubborn quality. Her eyes were a deep, rich brown, like Pam's, but with a tantalizing tilt at the corners. He was fascinated with the shape of them-slightly exotic, slightly almond-shaped, like a cat's. Her mouth was nearly as intriguing. A very French mouth-the lower lip full, the upper lip a delicate cupid's bow. He had never seen her smile. Until he had, he would superimpose Pam's smile onto her face.
He set his pencil aside and assessed his work.
He had missed Pam these past three months, but he could feel the ache of that loneliness beginning to subside. In his drug-induced haze, he visualized having been parched all that time. Now a fresh source of wine was ebbing closer, tantalizing him. He tried to imagine the taste on his tongue. Desire stirred lazily in his blood, and he smiled.
Annie. His angel.
12
Bail hearings in Partout Parish were held Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings, a schedule carefully structured to produce revenue. Anyone bailed out on Friday had the weekend to break another law or two, for which they would have to be bailed out again come Monday. Wednesday was thrown in for good measure and civil liberties.
The presiding judge, as luck would have it, was old Monahan. Nick groaned inwardly as Monahan emerged from his chambers and took his seat on the bench. Cases were called. A mixed bag of petty offenses on this Friday morning: drunk and disorderly, shoplifting, possession with intent to distribute, burglary. The defendants, their eyes downcast like dogs that had been caught soiling the carpet, stood beside their lawyers. Some of the accused looked ashamed, some embarrassed, some were just used to playing the game.
The gallery of the courtroom filled steadily as the cases were dealt with in short order, one scumbag loser at a time.
If these people going before him were losers, Nick thought, then what did that make him? Every person who came before the court claimed to have a good reason for what he or she had done. None was as good as his, but he doubted getting up and telling the court he had only done the job the court had shirked would win him any points with Monahan.
The esteemed members of the press filling the pews behind him were no doubt drooling for precisely that kind of dramatic statement. They waited restlessly through the preliminary goings-on, eager for the main event. Monahan seemed irritated by their presence, his mood more churlish than usual. He barked at the attorneys, snapped at the defendants, and set bail amounts at the high end of the spectrum.
Nick had exactly three thousand two hundred dollars in the bank.
"Don't piss off His Honor, Nick, my boy," Wily Tallant murmured, leaning toward Nick. "I do believe he's got an Irish headache today. Don't meet his eyes. If you can't look contrite, look contemplative."
Nick looked away. Tallant was a sly, scheming bastard- good qualities in a defense attorney, but that didn't mean he had to like the man. He only had to listen to him.
The lawyer was nearly a head shorter than Nick, with a lean, European elegance about him. His thin, dark hair was slicked back neatly, accentuating the distinguished lines of his face. He wore black suits year-round and a Rolex that cost more than Nick made in four months. Wily's clients may have been scumbags, but they tended to be scumbags with money.
Nick scanned the crowd again. A number of cops had found their way into the balcony that had been the gallery for black spectators in the days of open segregation. He spotted a couple of sheriff's deputies, a couple of Bayou Breaux uniforms. Broussard was not among them. He thought she might have come. This was what she wanted: him facing the music.
In the balcony front row, Stokes touched the brim of the ball cap he wore low over a pair of Ray-Bans. Quinlan, another of the SO detectives, sat beside him, along with Z-Top McGee, a detective from the city squad they had worked with a time or two.
It struck Nick as odd that anyone other than Stokes had come. He had spent no time cultivating friendships here. More likely their attachment to him was through the job. The Brotherhood. He was one of them, and here but for the grace of God… Ultimately, their concern was for themselves, he decided. A comforting cynical thought.
He dropped his gaze to the main gallery seating, skimming the faces of the reporters who had hounded him from the outset of the Bichon case, and one who had hounded him longer than that-a face familiar from New Orleans. New Orleanians generally cared little what went on beyond the boundaries of the Big Easy. The Cajun parishes were a separate world. But this one had smelled Nick's blood in the water and had come hungry. Unexpected, but not surprising.